


Take Up Space

by Shoulderpads



Series: Exit the Void [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Scars, Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-08-11 23:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20161534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoulderpads/pseuds/Shoulderpads
Summary: Her hands landed on her hips. “You didn’t think we’d be keeping you on the couch, did you?”He swallowed. So, they were throwing him out. Made sense. He knew it would happen eventually. Sora couldn’t look after Vanitas forever, and Kumo wouldn’t want him imposing on her life. But if he didn’t have plans before, he had no semblance of ideas now. Where would he go? Or were they sending him off somewhere? The Realm of Darkness where he logically belonged? The Land of Departure to face his actions? Vexen’s lab?“I don’t have things.” He said. Only his suit and his Keyblade. Nothing to pack.“I know, silly billy. That’s why we’re going to the store. To get stuff for your room.” Kumo smiled at him, relaxed, but eyes searching.Vanitas’s mouth went dry. “My room?”





	1. Black

**Author's Note:**

> So originally this was going to be one part but it became longer than expected and I am tired.
> 
> NOTE: I’ve reordered the series to be in chronological order, so if the numbers seem off, that’s why.

Kumo Taiyō, Vanitas thought, didn’t understand the concept of punishment. She’d told Sora he was “in so much trouble,” and while Vanitas knew from the vague and cloudy memories of his past that Xehanort punished on the harsher side, he expect more than this for disappearing without a trace on multiple occasions. 

Yet here Sora was, not receiving physical reprimanding, reduced privileges, or even manual labor, but sitting on the living room floor with his mother, going through boxes from the attic. They laughed and reminisced over the odds and ends packed inside the crates. Old report cards, juvenile art projects, and children’s books piled up on the floor. Sora joke over a perfect attendance award, and Kumo cooed over tiny shoes and miniature clothes Sora had worn while unaware of the man tearing lives apart worlds away who would eventually come to his.

Vanitas watched them from his corner of the couch, arms crossed and knees drawn up. He’d go somewhere else to spare him the saccharine scene, but the living room opened to the kitchen and dining room. At least in the kitchen he wouldn’t have to see them, just hear. And he figured it wouldn’t blow over well if he just invaded either of their bedrooms. He could hide in the bathroom, but that seemed suspicious. So, he watched. And let his mind wander. 

He hadn’t lied when he told Ventus he had no plans. His whole existence in this form had been dedicated to forming the X-Blade, but that was out of the question now. Even without that, Xehanort always had something for him to do. And now? He didn’t know. What did he _want_ to do? Was there even anything? He thought about it. He still wanted salvation, and end to his suffering, and to feel whole, but Ventus wasn’t a viable option anymore, Vanitas’s spot had filled without him there. Without the X-Blade’s promise, Ventus’s half, or Xehanort’s orders, what was Vanitas _supposed_ to do? 

Thus far, just existing didn’t seem to be going anywhere. 

“There!” Kumo stood and clapped the dust off her hands, startling Vanitas out of his thoughts. “A quick trip to the thrift store and we’ll be right as rain. Then we can move on to getting your things, ey, Vanitas?”

He blinked. “What?”

Her hands landed on her hips. “You didn’t think we’d be keeping you on the couch, did you?”

He swallowed. So, they were throwing him out. Made sense. He knew it would happen eventually. Sora couldn’t look after Vanitas forever, and Kumo wouldn’t want him imposing on her life. But if he didn’t have plans before, he had no semblance of ideas now. Where would he go? Or were they sending him off somewhere? The Realm of Darkness where he logically belonged? The Land of Departure to face his actions? Vexen’s lab?

“I don’t have things.” He said. Only his suit and his Keyblade. Nothing to pack. 

“I know, silly billy. That’s why we’re going to the store. To get stuff for your room.” Kumo smiled at him, relaxed, but eyes searching. 

Vanitas’s mouth went dry. “My room?”

“I’m sorry we can’t give you a proper one, and I figure you probably don’t want to share with Sora, but the attic is nice, I promise! The ceiling is high as any other room, and there’s a window, and plenty of space now that we cleaned out the old clutter-which I’ve been meaning to do anyway.”

Vanitas scarcely heard her. 

As Ventus, Xehanort taught him camping and survival, saying it built character, but looking back, he knew that the only character Xehanort was trying to build off the suffering of a amnesiac boy trying to pitch a tent in desert winds was enough darkness to reign in a vessel. As Vanitas, he didn’t have that much. He slept with his back to rocks, hoping to block said winds and keep warm. He’d never had a space of his own. When Xehanort finished training and left, Vanitas could collapse right there until his master reappeared with the toe of his boot in his ribs. In his furthest and fuzziest memories, Vanitas could almost feel a plush mattress. The couch already felt like too much. 

His throat closed up. 

“Vanitas, honey, don’t worry about the cost or anything. You need it, so I’ll make it happen, ok?” 

He jerked his head once. 

“This is going to be great! Decorating rooms is so much fun!” Sora beamed. 

—

Sora loaned Vanitas a coat to put over his suit since he refused any offered outfits, and they hit the streets with a flimsy story about being Sora’s long lost cousin or something like that. Kumo and Sora did the explaining while Vanitas stared past the donation boxes in his arms. 

“You ever been in a thrift shop?” Sora asked, watching his mom hand off the donations to some worker. 

Vanitas tried to swipe the sweat from the back of his neck. “No. Not that I remember.”

“Well they’re like second hand stuff for sale. You can bring old stuff you don’t need anymore and they sell it. You can find a lot of good cheap stuff here.”

Vanitas made a noncommittal sound. 

“We can go to a clothing store, but you could start looking for something here.”

Vanitas stared at the sea of clothing racks that made up the center of the floor. It stretched out before him like the vastness of the lanes between and he swallowed. Start looking? He never seen more clothes in his life, and he’d see more? 

“My mom and I thrift a lot,” Sora continued, hands in his pockets, “but nowadays most of my clothes have been tailor made by the good fairies.” He laughed awkwardly. 

“I...” Vanitas clenched his hands by his sides and shoved down his pride. “I don’t know where to start.”

Sora waved a hand as if trying to brush away the stress Vanitas had yet to physically manifest. “That’s ok. The store is organized by color so let’s start with that, w-“

“Black.” 

Sora blinked at him. “Ok. But let me know if there’s any other colors you want to try.”

Sora led him to a rack of pants. The colors varied between neutrals tones, subdued blues, and the occasional pop of color such as red. Vanitas didn’t know his size, but Sora simply shrugged and slung multiple sizes of pants over Vanitas’s arms. The stack included a few pairs with wide legs, a few with thin ones, and a range of lengths. 

By the time they made it to shirts, Kumo had arrived with a cart that they could dump their cargo into. Sora told him to grab anything he liked and throw it in, but he found it much easier to watch Sora pick out shirts of different styles and fabrics. He seemed to be preparing a wide variety for Vanitas to sort through, but even the small mound building in the cart didn’t hold a candle to the impossible choices of the whole store. Sora even held up shirts for Vanitas’s approval, and he’d accepted and declined in equal bounds. 

Over by the walls of shoes that seemed to tower over Vanitas, Kumo pulled a device from under a small bench and instructed him to sit. She placed his foot on the device and moved around a few sliders, pressing them to the side and tip of his boot. Then she told him to look for shoes with the size nine. 

“Just like me!” Sora grinned and ground his index fingers into his cheeks. 

Vanitas sneered. 

Kumo held different shoes out to him once it appeared he didn’t know what to do. She told him he should chose a comfortable pair of sneakers for walking around in and that he could probably hold off on dress shoes for the time being. He grabbed a pair of black sneakers with red accents, a pair of lace up boots, and ignored every sandal Sora pointed out. 

Then came the changing room. Kumo and Sora helped untangle the hangers in the cart and hooked them on the wall. Then they retreated with smiles and offers of help and opinions. He slid the lock in place and let a breath out into the tiny room. He dug through the shirts for his first victim, coming upon a black short sleeve with a cartoon drawing of some kind of bird. Sora seemed surprised when Vanitas nodded for it to go in the stack, but it made him snort. The bird looked like it could crawl onto Ventus’s head, curl up there, and no one would be any the wiser. He slid the shirt from its hanger and set it aside on the chair in the corner. Soon a pair of pants joined it, ready to go. 

Vanitas shed the coat and hooked his fingers into the neck of his dark suit. He peeled the material from his skin. Small tendrils of darkness clung to his flesh resisting the divorce like the rind of a fruit, but steadily Vanitas’s skin hit the open air, goose bumps dappling his arms and legs. His bare feet hit the cold floor and he shivered. 

Stood there looking at himself in the mirror, something unnatural twisted in his gut. He’s seen his skin before on rare occurrences, but it never felt like his. The crook of his elbow lacked the birth mark that should’ve been there, instead his only nevus was the jagged and violent twin scar that blossomed over his chest. Marks from battles and beatings-some that he remembered, others he didn’t-marred his body, interspersed with patches of soft baby skin that seldom saw the sun or weathered the elements. 

Running two fingers up his arm, he felt the topography of raised, pink hillsides and pale valleys. He winced against the texture grazing his exposed finger tips, his flesh a map of consequences and intent. 

Dizzy, he snatched the shirt off the chair and with fuzzy muscles memory he yanked it over his head and arms. With shaking hands he shimmied into what Sora called jeans, nearly tripping in the process. His hand pressed against the wall next to the mirror to keep him upright, and he bent his head towards the ground, choking on breaths that wanted to be much louder. 

His fingers felt every crack and imperfection in the old building’s drywall. The floor was hard and had a faint powdery feel to it as he wiggled his blessedly untarnished toes. His shield against the world lay crumpled on the ground next to him, yet as wholly overwhelming and suffocating as it was, his other hand gripped the hem of the shirt, the cotton against the pads of his fingers. The shirt had lived a life of its own, fabric worn and soft, not the sort of material an up and coming Keyblade wielder would choose. Wandering to the jeans, the material scratched against him, but not like sand on his bare cheek. The mirror had no blemishes on its smooth, cool surface. His hair was slick with sweat and warm when his trembling grip found it. 

He didn’t have his helmet when he woke in Shibuya, and he had only summoned it for battle. Sora already knew what he looked like, and the people on the street couldn’t see them to stare, so what point did he have for the thing? At first, the constant exposure to an untinted world had burned his cheeks and caused his eyes to crinkle, but the vividness of the clothes on pedestrians and neon signs in windows fascinating him in ways the dull colors of the Graveyard and dimmed tones behind his mask couldn’t. 

Just as the colors of the sun dipping behind the horizon of Destiny Islands soon became accustomed and welcomed to his eyes, he longed to jump off the edge of the safety his suit gave and feed his fingers textures they barely recalled. 

He stared at them, callused on the pads, scarred on the tops. They made him shiver, ghosts of sensation passing each line, but as disconcerting the sight was, the prospect of touch won out of his simmering anxiety. He tried to imagine the cool waters of the beach swirling between his fingers, the warmth of Kumo’s tea seeping in through the mug, the ridges on the banana leaves down the street. He briefly wondered if his fingerprints matched Ventus’s or Sora’s. Perhaps he even had his own. 

His arms, however were a problem. 

“Vanitas? You ok in there?” Sora’s muffled voice came through the door. 

“No...no short sleeves,” Vanitas bit out. 

Sora was silent a moment. “What about some jackets?”

“...Sure.”

Sora came back a minute later, tossing a few jackets and hoodies over the space between the door and the ceiling. Vanitas fished them from the doorway and shrugged on a leather jacket. It was a soothing weight against his shoulders, and well, he looked cool. He posed in the mirror with a smirk. The cartoon bird kind of ruined the badass look, but his toes sticking out from the hem of the jeans ruined it more. He slipped into the boots, tucking in the pants. He could live with this. 

After trying on all the clothes and separating them into piles of what did and didn’t fit and what looked good and what looked bad, he picked the dark suit off the ground. It hung limply in his grasp, heavy with darkness, sweat, and blood. He had a hand on the hem of the last shirt he’d tried, about to change when Sora spoke again. 

And like some kind of mind reader, he said, “Do you want to wear one of the outfits out? They just gotta scan the tags, so you might have to put a leg on the counter.”

“...Whatever.” Vanitas let go of the shirt and stepped out, suit wrapped in the coat. 

“Whoa, look at you!” Sora nodded his head approvingly. 

Kumo hung his discarded garments on a rack and placed the rest in the cart. “You want these?”

“Uhhh, how many do I pick?” Vanitas shoved his hands in his pockets. 

“The prices here are plenty cheap, if you like these, you can have them all.”

Vanitas tried to keep the shock off his face. 

In the end, they left the thrift shop with five shirts, three pairs of pants, sneakers, boots, a leather jacket, two hoodies, a studded belt, a pair of fingerless gloves, a pair of pajamas with sharks on them, and the promise of an unopened pack of underwear and socks from a different store. It was more than Vanitas expected, and the debt weighed heavy on his shoulders.


	2. Lilac

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the end note for some exciting news

“Which paint would y-“

“Black.”

Kumo blinked at Vanitas but he paid her no mind, staring dizzily at the wall of paint swatches. The cacophony of vibrance and tone stared back, so much more detailed and elaborate than any mural or vending machine in Shibuya. He’d almost forgotten so many colors existed. 

“I’m all for supporting your choices, as gothic as they may be, but Vanitas, a bedroom is supposed to be your save haven, a place of relaxation that reminds us of what we like and what soothes us,” Kumo explained. “I’m no interior designer, but painting your walls black would make it rather depressing. If that’s what truly makes you feel safe and relaxed, that’s fine, but maybe think about it a moment.”

Vanitas nearly snapped back that he’d made his choice, but he bit his tongue and did his best to show Kumo’s question some respect. 

He thought of turning inwards away from the world, of rest in between revivals. The inky black had cradled him in that time, shielded him then. But it also clung to his skin constricting his connection to the world, dulling his sensations. It coated his insides. It spilled in from his mouth and ever looming shadow. It hung in front of his eyes a reminder on the visage shoved haphazardly on his countenance. It’s what marked him different and wrong. 

Maybe it could shield his skin, but maybe it shouldn’t encapsulate his world. 

His eyes wandered down the line of colors to where Sora examined the reds. When he stared in the mirror, red stared back. It startled him each time, so used to his master’s eyes, but now he saw his own, something uniquely, comfortingly his own. But red was also the blinding flash of rage, the smudge of blood on dirt, the slash of it under his suit before it threaded itself back together. In his eyes it brought peace, outside it brought revulsion. 

Orange boiled like the sun above the Badlands, the heat absorbing into his suit until his master’s form wavered and rippled before him. The burnt tones of brown walled around him. The cliff sides, plateaus, and ever stretching ground surrounded Vanitas on all sides except the toxic orange sky. The brown carried in the wind and coated his visor until it was all to be seen. 

Yellow churned his stomach. It glared back at him in the eyes of Xehanort and all his cronies. To others it was the shine of light, warm and gold and denied to him, but for Vanitas it meant control. It clotted the eyes, the gateway to the soul, trapping it there under ill-fitting identity. 

Green was lush and full of life, like Ventus. He favored that color in his personality and in the glass of his friendship trinket he held so dear. It glowed from his Platform contrasting and “complimenting” Vanitas’s own red. In another life maybe it had been his favorite too, but he couldn’t recall. 

Rich, deep blues like pure powdered pigments stared back in opposition of the yellow. The Lights’ pure gazes had pierced his own, their champion color a reminder of what he wasn’t, what he couldn’t be, couldn’t have. It drowned him like the sparkling ocean in the glowers of his opponents. 

He stopped at the purples. They hung in the morning sky, painting the clouds from white to orchid. He could almost feel the crisp air, the chill of the night not yet banished by the rising sun. He sat there and watched the world wake purple platforms high off the ground. Morning dew still clung to bushes and trees, glistening and reflecting the lavender dawn. 

“This one.” He reached his hand out and walked forward like man possessed, drawn towards the wall. The edge of the card stock paper pricked his uncovered fingers but he pulled it up regardless. 02RB Lilac. 

“Ooh, that one’s pretty,” Sora said over his shoulder. 

The furniture store came with its own challenges. Sora lamented over the small selection, given the architecture he’s seen, and jokingly offered to had craft everything, but Vanitas just thought about that stupid wooden Keyblade he’d snapped over his knee. 

Kumo however, gave him a list of items to find. Simple enough. He had to find a twin size bed, a desk with a chair, a dresser, and some kind of storage unit, like a bookshelf. The second part of the request, finding ones he liked, was another story. Kumo and Sora pointed out the benefits and draw backs of the different items and made their own suggestions while Vanitas pondered his opinions. 

“The desk with the drawers going down the sides would be a great way store things like pencils and paper.” Kumo pointed out. 

“But this one has a lot of leg room!” Sora waved at a different, much simpler desk. 

Vanitas put a hand on his chin. The drawers would be a good utility to have, but he also didn’t have much in the way of possessions, and the space might be waisted on drawers. Then again, he’d never really needed leg room, preferring to sit with this ankles crossed under him. 

Kumo watched Vanitas’s eyes slide back and forth between the two desks, calculating. Half the time, she almost forgot he looked like Sora. Maybe they had the same features, but they wore their faces so differently. When she’d brought Sora here to remake his baby room into a kid’s room, he’d bounced excitedly from furniture to furniture, declaring one item as his choice before turning his eyes to another one and changing his mind. It took a lot of effort hemming and hawing, and that seemed true now, but in the opposite direction. Vanitas took each of his decisions with extreme scrutiny as if he might make the wrong one. 

Eventually he pointed at the desk with the drawers and Kumo scribbled down its name. The store didn’t have many dressers, which made the choice of a simple black varnished rectangle with four drawers easy. Another easy pick was a tall, simple book shelf. 

“It has the most efficient storing space,” he’d said. 

“Vanitas, honey, you don’t have to justify your choices to me,” she’d replied. 

Vanitas returned her response with a blank stare. 

The larger selection of beds gave their shopping trip pause. Just as in the past, Sora bounced from frame to frame telling Vanitas he should get that one. Vanitas leaned back as Sora pointed out the pros and cons of each bed, eyes darting to keep up. His shoulders raised, one hand going for the fabric above his abdomen, but before Kumo could step in and tell Sora to slow down, he really pushed for the hot red race car bed. 

“C’mon, this one for sure. Definitely. No question.” Sora continued to jazz hand in the bed’s direction. 

Vanitas’s closed his eyes and snorted through his nose, something almost like a smirk on his lips. He placed his palm square against Sora’s face and pushed him down on the bed and out of the way of the more subtle options. “As if,” he shot over his shoulder as he walked past. 

“Oh no,” Sora groaned flopping back and throwing an arm over his eyes. “Don’t you start with that, I can’t take another ‘as if’-er.”

Vanitas snickered. 

Kumo stared at the boys bantering and jeering playfully with one another. This boy who didn’t know what jeans or his shoe size were, who just the other night had fallen on her living room floor in a panic attack, who had spawned forms from his shadow now casually chatted with her son like any other child. It almost reminded her of how Sora and Riku used act before they went and grew up without her. 

Admittedly, she didn’t know too much about Vanitas, just his connection to Ventus as his dark half and how his tangential connection with Sora informed his appearance. The creatures that Vanitas had so viciously cut down were a frightening mystery she hadn’t yet had the nerve to ask about. The image of a boy so much like her son on hands and knees in a pool of shadow struck her more than she cared to admit. She wanted to understand. She wanted to understand why Vanitas didn’t know things, why his only reference for scrambled eggs were from a recent trip to some death dimension with Sora, why he so often looked ready to bolt, why his voice had shaken so badly when asking for long sleeves, why Ventus spoke such harsh words about him. 

She liked Ventus. He came by often with his bright grin and cheerful nature that had reminded her so achingly of her missing son. Before Sora came back, he’d left the details on Vanitas bare. His spoke matter of factly about the ordeal as if it was something from a history textbook and not a major life event. Venom never seeped into his words and he never seemed able to meet her eyes when speaking of his other half. But in her living room that night, she’d seen a new side of Ventus. Arguing with Sora and Vanitas, Kumo had seen suddenly a boy much older than his body with eyes that had seen too much heartache and sorrow and fear. 

She had no doubts Ventus spoke truthfully of Vanitas’s past crimes, and Vanitas didn’t seem to have any desire to deny or refute the claims. But no maniac abomination of pure evil would look so astonished at the prospect of having a bedroom. He wouldn’t have made himself small on her sofa leaving the pillows and sheets completely untouched and pristine. From the looks of it, the severing of Vanitas from Ventus and Ventus from Vanitas had been traumatic for both, but Ventus had recovered in the event in a home of love if the way he acted around Terra and Aqua or the way he spoke of Master Eraqus said anything. 

And from the sound of it, Vanitas had been what the others called “norted” if his description of yellow eyes and Terra not being the first to fall under Xehanort’s manipulation was anything to go by. 

She didn’t really know Vanitas. She didn’t know how much his actions were guided by nature or by nurture-or rather, lack thereof. She didn’t know how much his origins affected his physiology. But she trusted her eyes, and her eyes saw a human boy socializing with her son. 

And for now, that would have to be enough. 

—

When the truck full of the new furniture arrived at the house, Kumo winced at the idea of dragging everything up to Vanitas’s new room. However, Sora placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from lifting the corner of the desk. His Keyblade appeared, a sight Kumo wouldn’t ever get used to, and pointed it at the furniture. 

“Drift!” 

The items floated in the air, easily pushed and pulled without the restraint of gravity. At times-most times, Kumo hated watching magic. She hated how flippantly Sora warmed a thermos of stew with a fire spell, as if he had not just materialized flames from the thin air for the grandiose purpose of reheating leftovers. Kairi dried their hair after a rainy day visiting the paopu tree with an aero spell. The unnatural shift of air particles to accommodate for the defiance of physics burst around her, and the faint smell of ozone shook out of Kairi’s hair. Riku tripped down her the stairs once, chasing after his ringing phone with hope in his haunted eyes. One of his legs seized at the hip and he went down. When he hit the ground, his ankle was bent wrong and Kumo dropped a mixing bowl in shock. Before she could reach him, he cast a healing spell. The bones popped and cracked back into alignment, and he picked up the phone with a steady, “Your Majesty,” before it had finished ringing. 

But she supposed to save her back from struggling with heavy furniture, she could give this a pass. 

They spread a tarp down and gathered the furniture in the center of the room before Sora cast a gravity spell on them. After lining the baseboards with painter’s tape, they set to work, plunging rollers into the lilac paint and going to town. 

It brightened the walls’ previous coat of brown that had darkened with time. With each stroke, the space came more alive and welcoming. Kumo didn’t know how long Vanitas would stay with them, especially with his twitchy nature. Kumo didn’t know where Vanitas would go if he did disappear like the people involved in this key business seemed keen to do, but come hell or high water, he’d have a place here he could always come to. 

“Vanitas,” she called, “come look at this.”

“What?” He turned to her, brush in hand. 

Kumo gestured to the mostly unfinished side wall. She’d painted a smile in the middle of it. The doodle was simple, just two lines and a curve. Vanitas pursed his lips at it, eyebrows furrowing. 

“You want an award or something?” he asked. 

“No, no,” she laughed. “This is for when you come home feeling like no one in the world is happy to see you, you’ll know that this place is always happy to see you, even if it’s under another layer of paint.”

“...it’s just a wall,” he said, turning back to his work, but Kumo caught the barest flash of a grin. 

—

Finished with the walls, they moved on to the baseboards and door frame. Vanitas had picked out black as an accent color, unwilling just yet to give up on the dark paint. In all honestly, the colors really popped together. The light airiness of the lilac against the starkness of the black made a rich contrast Vanitas found himself pleasantly surprised with. He wouldn’t call himself a master in color theory in any sense of the word, but this was satisfying. 

Kumo made her leave after finishing up the walls, trusting the boys not to fuck it up too badly. Sora and Vanitas sat cross legged on the plastic covered floor in a comfortable silence, and if Vanitas listened carefully, he could hear Kumo downstairs starting dinner. 

“You’re making me want to give my own room a makeover,” Sora said with a laugh, still stooped over his work. “It...doesn’t reflect on my current self anymore.”

Vanitas clicked his tongue. “It’s just a place to sleep in.”

Sora shook his head. “It’s more than that. It’s your own personal space. It’s where you’re supposed to feel safe, where you can go when everything is too much. It’s a place to express yourself and reflect who you are. It’s...yours.”

“And what? It just isn’t that for you anymore?”

“I’m not the same Sora who left it...”

Vanitas looked over then. Sora hadn’t stopped painting, covering the faded white wood with the black. He had this far away look in his eyes even as they carefully kept his lines straight. A small frown tugged at his mouth, and if Vanitas didn’t know his own face so well, he’d think it was a concentrated frown. 

He looked at the paint on his fingers, not nearly as neat at his mirror image. “Hey, Sora.”

“Yeah?”

“You got something on your face.”

Sora wiped at the imaginary spec and Vanitas shook his head. “Nah, let me.”

Trustful, Sora leaned forward, allowing Vanitas to swipe his blackened thumb over the other’s cheek. Recoiling at the wet feeling, Sora jerked back and touched the stain. “Vanitas!”

Vanitas laughed, “Yeah, you got something on your face alright.”

Sora snorted, bursting into a series of giggles. “Ok, you got me!” He flopped back on the crinkling sheet, soft titters against Vanitas’s sharp cackles. 

“We really are glad to have you here, Vanitas,” Sora said after they’d caught their breath. 

“At least someone is,” Vanitas deadpanned. 

“They’ll come around. They’re good people.”

—

Hours later when they pushed the furniture against the walls, Vanitas looked over _his_ room. It was filled with furniture he picked out, and paint he chose. It was his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn’t my proudest work overall, but I do like some of the sections in here a lot, so I hope that makes up for it. 
> 
> The smile on the wall is actually based on an occurrence where my neighbor was painting his house a new color and drew a smile in line with our front door. 
> 
> So exciting news! I am going to be part of an upcoming Vanitas themed zine! It’s still really early in development (we don’t even have a title yet), but if you’d like to learn more and keep up with the project, here’s the tumblr: https://vanitasappreciation.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> Next time: Interior design!
> 
> HMU at Shoulderpads-mcgee2 on tumblr


End file.
